But Only For You
by goldfish400
Summary: Maui, leaving Te Fiti, returning, and his first conversation with Moana after touching down on Motunui.


Maui's been flying for an hour before the smoke finally clears from the sky.

Once he can finally see what's in front of him again, he flares his wings to gain more wind to push him higher into the air and to get him farther away from Te Fiti faster. There's no way Moana can see him anymore, but Maui doesn't care. He just wants to be away from everything, away from Te Fiti and her accursed heart, away from the red spiral on the sail of Moana's canoe, away from the familiarity and the false sense of comfort the wood on its deck provided him, and away from Moana, the one responsible for the crack running through his hook, from the young mortal who dived into Lalotai to help him retrieve it, the mortal who fought off Tamatoa to save him with nothing but her wisdom and immense amounts of empathy for a mortal her age, the mortal whose _voice cracked on his name as she begged and pleaded for him to stay, to fight with her, who stretched out her arms just as he took off hoping it was enough to get him to-_

No. It doesn't matter now what Moana was doing, because she's not his problem anymore. Yeah. That's what she's been. A problem. Ever since he's met her she's caused him nothing but trouble. Repeatedly whacking him with her oar, summoning the Kakamora to her tiny vessel, nearly getting eaten at _least_ a dozen times down in Lalotai, and now, nearly costing him his hook because she's too stubborn to just _listen._ Maui shoves those thoughts aside, ruffles out his feathers a bit, and refocuses his attention on the sea below him. He supposes the one good thing to come out of this mess was that the kickback of the impact Te Kā's fist had on his hook sent them flying hours off course, so finding an island to take refuge on to sort out his thoughts shouldn't take that long.

It's another half hour before he sees so much as another speck of land. There's no full-sized islands, green and blooming with life, just large crags of rock and scattered groups of small, dying islands too familiar to his own for his comfort. Maui shakes his head again and pushes himself up higher into the sky to see if he can find something more suitable to his liking farther out. Surprisingly, though, even as he soars above the clouds to look for more, he's still met with nothing but dead or close-to islands and large crags of dark stone everywhere he looks.

 _I'm here because you stole the Heart of Te Fiti._

Well, at least the kid had been right about something. Stealing the heart really did seem to have a pretty bad effect on the islands. Maui'd just thought she was trying to get a rise out of him, like the idea that he was _hurting_ humanity would convince him any better to go with her (and it had, but it's not like Moana's around to hear him admit it), but it turns out the kid was actually right about that too. Every little island he finds himself coming across is either blackening and turning to ash, or wearing away with the breeze, leaving behind a pale white of the likes Maui's only seen on his own island. If he were in his human form, it wouldn't take much to know just who's side of the scoreboard Mini Maui would be adding a tally mark to right about now.

Maui goes to roll his eyes, somewhat amused by the thought, but catches himself and stops. He settles instead to scoff at himself, ruffling out his feathers again, because he's thinking about her, _again, he's not supposed to be thinking about her, he's supposed to be mad at her,_ and refocuses his attention on looking for somewhere to land. He's obviously not going to find a luscious, green island anytime soon, so Maui supposes he's just going to have to settle for the next _thing_ large enough to support him to land on instead. (Distantly, he thinks back to a few weeks after Lalotai, when Moana excitedly told him about _Motunui,_ how _green_ and how _beautiful_ her home island is, but Maui furiously stamps down that thought and looks for something smaller).

It's two hours since he left Te Fiti when he finally comes across an island large enough and lively enough that it wouldn't crumble to ash and salt if he were to land on it, and from the air Maui can tell that it's entirely unoccupied by anyone else. Soundlessly, he dives down towards the shore, and winces inadvertently when his hook crackles painfully as he shifts back into his human form. Hefting it over his shoulder, Maui starts off towards the center of the island, but before he can so as much take a single step forward there's a violent yanking of his arm that stops him dead in his tracks. When he glances downward, Mini Maui's holding the edge of his tattoo. When his small counterpart sees he has his attention, he glares up at him and snaps the tattoo back against his skin.

"Ow!" Maui glares down at him, more surprised than actually hurt. "What was that for?"

Mini Maui's glare deepens, and he shakes his head. He jumps over to Maui's other arm, and gestures violently back towards the direction of Te Fiti.

"What?" Maui splutters, and his glare hardens. "No."

Mini Maui copies his expression, the little glare set on his face hardening as well. He shakes his head, and gestures back towards Te Fiti, more violently this time.

"I said _no."_ Maui growls, and turns his gaze away from Te Fiti and down towards Mini Maui. "I told her, and I'll tell you. _I'm not going back"_ he mutters, his voice dropping to a low tone.

Mini Maui just shakes his head, and gives him a questioning look.

"Why?" Maui asks, and lets his hook slip off of his shoulder and down to his side before he holds it up to his eye level. "Because she ruined my hook"

Mini Maui shakes his head, and leaps over to his back. Maui can feel a twinge of heat, like phantom pain, as his tattoo of Te Kā animates to life. He scoffs. "Details." he wiggles his hook out in front of him. "It doesn't matter who _actually_ cracked it, because she's the one who _caused_ it." Maui shakes his head. "If she'd just listened to me the first time, like any other _normal_ person would, and she hadn't tried to squeeze her tiny canoe through a hole it never would've made through anyway, _I_ never would've had to leap forward and protect her to prevent her from getting herself killed!" Maui throws his arms into the air overdramatically, but freezes at the words coming out of his own mouth, his warrior face shattering to pieces.

To protect _her._

Not _himself,_ not _her canoe,_ not even _the Heart. Her._

Maui grumbles to himself, frustratedly, and scrambles to rearrange his warrior face back on before the little inked nuisance can notice it's even gone. Even if it was for _her, to keep her safe,_ it doesn't excuse that it was her stupid act that got her in trouble in the first place, and no amount of protectiveness he _decidedly does not_ feel for her is going to change the fact that it was she who pushed herself directly into the path of Te Ka's fist in the first place.

But when he glances back down at Mini Maui, he's standing with his arms crossed smugly over his little chest, one eyebrow cocked upwards at him with a grin spreading across his face.

"Oh, stay out of it" he deadpans, and flicks him to a panel on his back. If he didn't know better, he could almost swear that Mini Maui's laughing as he scrambles away back to his front. "I told you. That's not the part that matters."

Mini Maui cocks his eyebrow up at him again, and when Maui glares again the little tattoo holds up his hands, almost as a gesture of defeat, and he grins as he squints his eyes closed to demonstrate laughter.

Maui sighs, heavily, and his glare drops to a blank expression. "Alright, alright." he starts, and his hook drops to the ground as he holds up his hands in a gesture of defeat, a mirror to the same motion his little tattoo had just done a moment ago. "Fine. I'll play along. _Yes,_ I did it to protect her."

Mini Maui rolls his hand in a circular motion, encouraging him to keep going. Maui sighs.

" _No,_ she wasn't _actually_ the one who cracked it."

Mini Maui repeats the gesture.

"Te Kā" he admits. "Te Kā cracked my hook." Maui shakes his head. "But what's saying that out loud gonna do? Magically fix my hook?" Maui snorts incredulously, and Mini Maui's grin drops. He shakes his head, and developing a more serious expression, he jumps back over to his other shoulder and points off towards the horizon. Maui turns to follow Mini Maui, and only finds himself staring back towards Te Fiti.

Oh.

"Nice try" Maui starts. "But I'm still not going back."

Mini Maui shakes his head, and jumps back over to his spot on his chest, but instead of snapping the edge into his skin, or giving up and settling back into place, he flashes his little inked hook and the entire image on the panel shifts. Taking the place of the sky is a small, rocky island surrounded by the ocean. Mini Maui sits on the island alone, hands pressed to his cheeks in boredom. But before Maui can ask him what he's doing, a small canoe swims into the panel and stops on the island. Mini Maui visibly perks up, and runs to board the canoe. He sits down, and the little canoe turns and sails away from the little island.

Maui opens his mouth to question what he's doing, but the answer comes to him before he can ask and he blinks rapidly at the realization.

Moana saved him by pulling him off of that little island. It wasn't something he'd thought at the time, and certainly wasn't something he'd thought about much on the journey to Te Fiti. But Mini Maui has a point. A thousand years he'd spent on that island, and nobody came to his rescue but Moana.

Often times, long after he ran out of space on the boulders for any more tallies or for more carvings of his own feats, he'd often pass the time by sitting atop the tallest boulder and staring out at the horizon. Most of the time he'd clamber up to watch the sun rise or set, and occasionally he'd sit back to gaze at the stars, but sometimes, on rare occasions, he'd climb up just to stare out at the ocean.

He wasn't sure what he'd been looking for at the time, or what it meant when he'd find himself staring at the sun glimmering off of the waves, but he knows, now, that he'd been looking for a boat. Every time he stared out at the ocean, he'd be hoping, _praying_ he would see some sight of a mast or hear the sound of a sail ruffling in the wind, but in his thousand years on that island he didn't see any sight of any boat.

Except for one.

Maui goes to say something, but before he can there's another flash of Mini Maui's little hook and the image shifts again. Mini Maui's still on that little boat, but then a group of inked clouds clear in front of him to reveal another canoe. Aboard the second canoe sits three Kakamora pirates. Mini Maui's hook pops out of existence, momentarily, and he jumps into a fighting stance. Before he can leap onto the second canoe, however, something just outside of the tattoo panel knocks a fourth Kakamora into view, barreling it straight into the other three and knocking them into the water below. The figure out of view tosses something to Mini Maui, and he hops up to catch it. He then holds up the little trinket towards his large counterpart, and even in ink form the Heart of Te Fiti is undeniably recognizable.

...That too. Somehow, miraculously, after the Kakamora stole the heart of Te Fiti, Moana had fearlessly boarded their boat and stole it back before he had time to conjure an escape plan. Oar in hand, she'd climbed aboard an enemy vessel and let _nothing_ stop her until she got what she wanted.

Another flash of a tiny hook, and another shift in the image. There are tiny trinkets and what appears to Maui to be little stones scattered all over the floor of the panel. Mini Maui stands in the middle, facing the right wall of the panel, when all of a sudden the little trinkets on the ground begin to tremble. Mini Maui stumbles backwards and lands on his behind, and Tamatoa steps out from other side of the panel, and Maui's lips twitch downward at the sight. He doesn't need to keep watching to see where this is going, so he doesn't. Maui pulls his gaze away from the display and absentmindedly turns his gaze back out towards the horizon.

That day, when he faced Tamatoa, he feared for the first time in millennia that he could've died. It wasn't an irrational train of thought, of course, but it was a new feeling and quite frankly one Maui didn't like in the least. He could actually feel his muscles gradually beginning to give up on him as Tamatoa tossed him around his cave like he was little more than a plaything, and Maui wouldn't be lying if he said he was fully expecting Moana to do the same thing. Sneak out of her cage when Tamatoa had his back turned to her, and abandon him for the crag in her wall for her own safety.

...But she didn't. Instead she blew his expectations of her out of the water, _again,_ and chose instead to risk her own life to protect his. Without hesitation Moana jumped in front of Tamatoa's path, knowing very well that he could kill her anytime he wanted to, and taunted him off in a different direction to save Maui's life. She'd returned to his side the instant Tamatoa was distracted with her decoy Heart, and she wrapped her arms around him and placed a supporting hand on the center of his back as she carried and supported him back to her canoe.

And speaking of support, despite everything he'd grown to know about Moana, despite the endless number of times she managed to outdo herself, nothing shocked him about Moana more than how _supportive_ she'd been about his origin story. Instead of turning away, of saying nothing at all, she sat beside him and used everything in her power to calm him down. She convinced him that it was _he_ who made him Maui, not the gods, or his hook, or even his mother, but _him._ All the good he's done, she'd said, was because he was a good person, and had nothing to do with any godlike powers or magical weapons. Sure, those things helped, she'd joked, but neither of those things had anything to do with the _why._

And when he finally found the courage to turn and meet her eyes, if only for a brief moment, it caught him off-guard to notice something of _fondness_ for himglinting in her eyes.

This entire trip, Moana's done nothing but protect him. From the Kakamora, from Tamatoa, from his mother, from himself. She protects, and she cares, and she gives. Gods, from the very beginning, Mona's done nothing but give.

...And all he's done and sat back and _taken_ without so much as a thanks.

From the ground, his hook crackles loudly, and when Maui looks down towards it to pick it up he sees that Mini Maui's gone back to holding up the sky, frozen in place. His hook crackles warmly in his hands, and between one spark of purple lightning and the next everything comes rushing back to him so quickly that he hears his own horrified voice whisper _Moana_ before he even registers that he'd said it out loud.

The Heart. He'd dropped it before he took off.

Of _course_ she'd go back to restore the Heart. With or without him, Moana is determined to save her people, and he knows now just how far this precious mortal is willing to go to save them. With a flash of his hook, Maui turns hawk and silently flaps off back towards Te Fiti as fast as his wings can carry him.

Maui's not sure if it's luck, desperation, determination, or some unholy amalgam of all three, but only one hour has passed before he finds himself back in the smoke-filled skies of Te Kā's territory. He's not sure how much time's actually passed since he abandoned Moana's canoe, but his only clue that it's probably been a few hours longer than he thinks it's been is the fact that Moana's canoe is no longer where he left it.

He's not sure why this causes his chest to clench tightly, or why his heartbeat starts pounding loudly in his ears, but it does, and Maui bites down a hawk's screech as he grumbles frustratedly to himself and forces his heartbeat to calm. He's about to dive down towards the water to look for her, because maybe she's still on the way over and he beat her here, but a bright flash of orange out of the corner of his eye and Te Kā's angry shrieking has him correcting his course and soaring towards the noise as fast as his wings can carry him.

He spots the mast of Moana's canoe disappearing into the barrier islands about three seconds before he spots the fireball Te Kā hurls at it. Maui soars upwards, high above the smoke fogging the air, and is filled with more relief than he's willing to admit when he sees her canoe make it out the other side safely. The relief's short lived, though, because when Te Kā twists herself around and explodes out of the barrier islands, now facing towards Te Fiti, Moana's canoe goes flying and even from this high up Maui can hear the muffled _smack_ as Moana disappears below the waves. Anger, dark and ugly, easily takes the relief's place, and everything he's ever known of strategy leaves his head as he dives toward her canoe as she helps herself back on board, and when Te Kā begins grabbing for Moana he lets out a loud hawk's screech to throw Te Kā off-guard. Te Kā hesitates for a half-moment, and Moana looks up at the sound.

"Maui!" she calls cheerily, and when he lands on her canoe and steadies himself he lifts his head to meet her gaze.

And in Moana's smile he finds more warmth than even the heat radiating from Te Kā herself.

It's two and a half months after Te Fiti before Maui sees Moana again.

He touches down on Motunui's shore, and in _seconds_ Moana is on him, leaping into his arms and wrapping her own around his neck the same way she had before they parted ways. It's with a large grin and a loud, unbothered laugh of his own that Maui wraps his arms around her shoulders and spins her in a circle before he lets her fall from his arms and back onto the sand.

"It's so good to see you!" Moana grins, and punches him in the arm. "I'd been wondering when you'd finally decided to show up". Her grin widens. "You're lucky you came when you did, because any later and I would've taken my canoe out to come find you and drag you back here myself".

Maui matches her grin with one of his own. "By the ear, I presume?"

"You bet!" Moana grins, and stands a bit taller. "Come on! There's so much I want to show you" she says, and before Maui even has time to protest she presses herself to his side and wraps her arm around his as she begins to drag him towards her village.

And as she does, Maui just takes a moment to look at her. To really look. Moana's walking along the trail to her village so excitedly she's practically _bouncing,_ and the grin spread across her face seems to widen with every step they take closer to it. She eventually catches him watching her, and when she turns her gaze to meet his, her eyes are practically _glistening_ in sheer joy.

It's a good look for her.

"Wait" Maui blurts. "Before we go into the village, there's something I need you to know".

"Hm? What's up?"

"It's about what happened at Te Fiti"

Moana's face falls inadvertently, if only for the briefest of seconds, but long enough for Maui to notice and for a sudden wave of guilt to swirl around in his stomach. Maui forces it down, and shakes his head. "Look-" he starts. "What I said, what I did-" he pauses. "It was wrong. I never should've left." he bows his head. "I'm sorry".

Moana's quiet for a number of heartbeats. "It's okay" she says eventually, and steps forward to rest a hand against his cheek. When he lifts his head to meet her gaze, she's back to smiling at him like she did on Te Fiti, its warmth only comparable to that of the fires of Te Kā. "You came back" she says, and reaches to brush the hair out of his face and tuck it back behind his ear for him. "That's what matters" she says, and steps forward to wrap her arms around him in another hug. Maui wraps his arms around her to hug her back, but she pulls away far too soon as a thought apparently comes to her.

"Oh, that reminds me, actually" she says, opening her eyes Maui wasn't even aware that she'd closed. "I've actually been meaning to ask you something, too"

Maui blinks. "Yeah?"

"What made you come back?"

"What?"

"When you came back, you said something about a conversation you had with a 'buddy of yours'" she repeats his own words with air quotes, and shakes her head. "But I think there's more to it that you never told me. What made you come back?" she asks, and when Maui absentmindedly spares a glance down at his tattoos for an answer his eyes catch on the little curly-haired wayfinder resting over his heart.

"It was you, Moana"

Moana blinks, like that was the last thing she was expecting out of him. "What?"

"It was you" Maui repeats. "I came back for you. When I left, I turned and saw you everywhere I looked."

"I touched down on a little unoccupied island about, two hours from the border islands, I wanna say. I tried everything I could to get my mind off of you, but found that the more I tried to push you away, the _more_ I seemed to think about you." Maui shakes his head. "Because I was angry. Unfairly so." he pauses to tap the side of his head. "I wasn't thinking straight". Maui drops his gaze down momentarily, and when he brings it back up to meet hers he huffs quietly in amusement. "I was on that island for about thirty seconds before this guy swooped in to convince me this" he says, and Mini Maui animates to life to wave a little _hello_ to Moana. She snorts and waves back.

"He'd pointed out to me that I was being unfair. That this was something I shouldn't have been mad at you about, because all I was trying to do was protect you." he shakes his head again. "I didn't buy it at first, so he tried going about convincing me from a different route".

"And what route was that?"

He can't help the small smile spreading to his face. He really can't. "By reminding me of everything you've done for me" he brings a hand to his head. "The Kakamora, Tamatoa, my _own parents?"_ he starts, listing off each item with a count of his fingers. "You've protected me from so much, Moana. I could go on and on" he says, and drops his arm to his side. "Ever since we met, Moana, you've been nothing but patient with me. Even when I didn't deserve it"

Moana's got an argument for that, and he can see that she's about to use it, so he simply shakes his head and holds up a hand to let her know he isn't finished.

"Everything we went through out there," he gestures out towards the ocean. "You stood by me through it all. But when we got to Te Fiti, and you needed me to return the favor, I gave up. I left."

"That wasn't fair to you. I realized that after I landed on that little island. I couldn't leave you behind knowing I'd hurt you". He bows his head again. "I couldn't disappoint you, Moana" he murmurs, and pulls his head back up to look at her. " _That's_ why I came back, Moana. Not because of some obligation, not so I could _be the hero_ again, not even for Te Fiti. I came back for you, and _only_ for you" he finishes, and reaches forward to catch Moana into a hug as she reaches her arms out towards him, her face crumbling in on itself. Maui gives her a minute to break in his arms, and allows himself a minute to just _hold_ her before he speaks again.

"And I _promise_ you that I'll never abandon you in a time of need like that again".


End file.
